


The Wreck Up Ahead

by allbluemarauder



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Anxiety Disorder, Drug Use, Explicit Language, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-02-11 00:57:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12923883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allbluemarauder/pseuds/allbluemarauder
Summary: Band AU: Sanji plays in a band with his friends, and is tragically in love with Zoro. He's also addicted to anxiolytic drugs with some bad side effects.





	1. Chambers

Sanji’s finger is bleeding, on his left hand, his guitar-gripping hand, and he thinks that all gigs should be like this. He’s playing like he’s possessed, he doesn’t even know how he does it but it sounds raw and he enjoys feeling like a god. Luffy hangs on to the mic stand like it’s a part of him now, black hair illuminated by the flashing lights like he’s wearing a halo, even if he frankly looks more like the devil. Usopp has never drummed this good, either. Nami’s on the floor with her bass and people are cheering and _Christ,_ this can’t get better. As Luffy belts out “ _got the space sickness”_ and stares out with his teeth all bared, Sanji looks out at the modest but crazy crowd and finds himself staring right at Zoro, because honestly, he’s surprised to see him down there, but also because he looks genuinely happy, for once. His eyes are fixed on Luffy and he’s shouting the words back at him, and Luffy eats it up and points at him.

_Now I dream in color of your face, and the coast in your mirror shades_

_Only feel relief when I’m back at home, falling forward alone._

Sanji's about to fucking lose it because Zoro’s obviously drunk and singing and it’s beautiful, and then by default, very painful. Zoro doesn’t know what the song is about. There’s no way he’d know. He’s not sure Zoro even knows who really writes the songs, which is Sanji of course, and does it matter? In the grand scheme of things?

He doesn’t think so, but nothing can kill this gig now, he spits the lines under his breath and steps on the pedalboard with too much force, as if it can make him indifferent about the whole thing. Zoro’s mouth moves with the shape of the lyrics, _the shape of true love is terrifying enough,_ as blood runs down Sanji’s now mangled fingers.

If he was still in high school this would have been a joke, but he’s not, he’s twenty-four and that just makes it even more pathetic. Ever had a crush on a jock in your twenties?

He looks up at the ceiling and wonders when his life will stop being such a huge fucking cliché.

 

As they drive into Jackson Sanji thinks about Luffy, and how he never asks what his songs are about. He just looks at him in that very calculating and squinty way and lets him have his silence. Sanji thinks that Luffy knows everything, knows how Zoro drives him crazy, and has probably concluded a long time ago that there’s little he can do about it. Just like Sanji himself has. Whatever, he’s a grown ass man, he can be miserable in love if he wants to. Right?

Nami _had_ asked, had looked at him with concern when they were at practice and said: “Sanji, Jesus fuck, are you okay?” And Sanji had laughed and shrugged, and she let it go. They usually let him brood in peace and he’s thankful for that. He wishes he was confident enough for his own lyrics.

He watches the boring landscape from his window seat, and Zoro turns up the music. Sanji grits his teeth and writes some more in his notebook.

“Hey!” Luffy exclaims, looking like he just got a bright idea, and that is never good, except the time he said they should start a band. “We should go to Six Flags!”

They all groan and Luffy protests loudly. “What the hell guys, we’re in Jackson anyway! Might as well wait in some lines. Well?”

Sanji looks around at the tired faces in Zoro’s beat up old van, and knows that they’re thinking the same thing he is: Luffy’s word is final. “All right, Six Flags up next,” Zoro says, voice echoing in the car, and maybe this won’t be so bad. He can tag along with Nami and play stupid word games. Yeah. It’ll be fun.

“Some fun will do you good,” Zoro says, and somehow it feels very directed at Sanji instead of at the whole group. _Fuck you_ , Sanji thinks, and swears he can see Nami smirking.

 

Once inside the huge park, Sanji feels his heart sink a bit. Luffy and Usopp are already gone, Luffy in a cloud of excitement and Usopp mumbling about the “very interesting construction of these things”. Nami, Zoro, and Sanji are left, but suddenly Nami squeals, and runs off to chat with a very pretty girl with blue hair.

“Who’s that?” Zoro asks, and Sanji rolls his eyes. How would he know? He’s never seen her before. As they disappear, a grim realization dawns on Sanji. There are only two people left standing like idiots at the entrance: himself and Zoro.

“Guess it’s me and you, then,” Zoro mumbles, and rolls his eyes at Sanji who just stares at the ground because - this is the worst day ever. “Do whatever you want, I’m gonna go ride some shit,” Zoro says, and Sanji frowns because he sure as hell doesn’t want to wander around here alone.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Zoro goes to the ticket booth and Sanji looks at his back while he walks. Zoro’s one of those people with a very mysterious past, and by past, Sanji means love life. He has no fucking clue if Zoro has a girlfriend, God forbid a boyfriend, or even if he ever has had one. He’s most likely into girls because, let’s be real, Zoro looks like the straightest guy ever. Not to judge the book by its cover, but he’s wearing camouflage-patterned _cargo shorts._ Sanji himself is wearing a fucking scarf, in the middle of the summer, because he’s just that committed to looking as Gay™ as possible. Maybe it’s just spite at this point, whatever, he’s rocking this scarf.

He pats his pockets to find his cigarettes just as his gaze hits a “no smoking” sign, so that’s just great.

“I got tickets, let’s go,” Zoro says, and Sanji follows him towards a freakishly huge rollercoaster. Sanji realizes that he knows very little about Zoro at all, except that he likes American football, and apparently is quite good at it.

“You like roller coasters?” Zoro asks, when they’re in line for the “Bizarro”, and Sanji is quite honestly a bit offended that he’s trying to small-talk with him when they’ve been acquaintances for this long.

“I don’t hate them.”

“Hm.”

They stand in line for thirty minutes and it’s the most excruciating thirty minutes of Sanji’s life. Zoro is tan, he always is in summer, and Sanji adds this to the list of things he knows about him.

  1. Likes and plays American football
  2. Gets really tan



It’s not a very long list. He can see the line on Zoro’s arm where his t-shirt normally would cover his shoulder, and the slight color difference on his skin. He’s wearing a tank top, carrying his jacket under his arm. Sanji knows that he works out a lot, and it shows, it really does. The hairs on his arm have a blond shine in the sun and Sanji really needs to stop staring at his arm just about now, because this is getting ridiculous.

“I like roller coasters,” Zoro says, after about twenty minutes, and by God, this could not be any weirder. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to respond to that or not.

When they finally get on the damn thing, Sanji understands that Zoro doesn’t just like rollercoasters, he _loves_ them, because he looks like an absolute maniac. He’s never seen him like this, even happier than at the concert, and it seems that Sanji’s blatant lack of joy doesn’t change his mood in the slightest. As they stop on an elevated curve before a giant drop, Sanji feels a bit sick. As they drop down, Zoro seems like he’s living his dream, throwing his arms into the air, shouting and the whole works. Sanji tries not to think about how close they are, tries to not think about kissing and falling and stuff like that - but Zoro looking like the most honest version of himself makes him look very kissable. Sanji feels their shoulders brush and this sucks so bad, he doesn’t even want to emo out about it, he just wants to go home and go to bed.

Zoro stays happy the rest of the day, and plays upbeat songs in the car when they drive home. He drums along on the steering wheel and announces that when they get back to Long Island, the next round at the bar is on him.

 

When they get back home, they immediately retreat to the standard bar, all except for Sanji who looks like he’s in worse shape than usual and goes home. He says he’s got work in the morning and probably thinks that no one sees through that very transparent excuse. Zoro doesn’t know why he doesn’t want to hang out with them, but he also doesn’t know Sanji well enough to pry anyway. It’s been a really strange day. He got stuck with Sanji at Six Flags, and while he had a blast at times, he also saw more clearly than ever that Sanji really fucking hates his guts, for some reason. It’s always been off between them, and though Sanji is friends with everyone else in their little group, the two of them just never clicked. If Sanji doesn’t want to give him a chance then that’s totally fine, it’s not like Zoro’s dying to be on friendly terms with him either. It is a little annoying though, not knowing what it is about him that Sanji seems to despise so much.

He and Luffy are at the bar with a couple of beers, and Zoro decides to just ask.

“Hey Lu,” he says, and Luffy grins at him. “I’ve been wondering about this forever, do you know why Sanji hates me? It just bothers me not knowing why, you know.”

Luffy suddenly looks very pensive, like he’s choosing his words carefully. It’s a rare look on Luffy, and a bit unsettling. “I don’t think he hates you?”

“Dude, he hates my guts, I’ve been trying all day to be nice and he just scowls at me. Looks at me through his fringe, like this,” Zoro insists, and uses his hands to mimic Sanji’s hair falling in front of his eyes, like it always does. He glares at Luffy through his fingers.

Luffy laughs. “That was SPOT ON!” Then he thinks some more. “Maybe he was just… hungry.”

Zoro scoffs and rolls his eyes. “He was not hungry! We even bought burritos at one point.”

This goes on for some time and Luffy’s suggestions increase in ridiculousness. Zoro doesn’t push it further, even though something is definitely strange with Luffy’s behavior, and Sanji most definitely isn’t “allergic to the entire state of New Jersey”.

 

Sanji sits in his bed, in his shitty apartment, and stares at the tiny box of prescription Klonopin in his hand. There are six left, which is about three days worth, and since Silk Road is closed now he has no choice but to actually go out to a very sketchy part of the city, and get some more. Or, you know, he could stop being such a fucking coward and quit using the anxiety medication he’d been taking for over a year longer than he should have. But that’s not gonna happen, so he might as well just square up, because he’d rather risk his life than actually face whatever it is that happens when he stops taking the meds. His hands are trembling as he pops two pills and closes his eyes. The world stops vibrating and the noise in his head quiets, soon he feels the usual numbness kick in. It’s the highlight of his day, if we’re being honest here.

And yeah, it’s not supposed to be like this, it’s not like he planned on being a fucking junkie. But that’s how it is, Sanji thinks, and then lets that thought float away. He doesn’t need that kind of negativity in his life. There’s enough crap already. He might as well have a drink.

 

The others are at the bar, seemingly doing some kind of drinking game at Usopp’s expense, and Sanji gladly joins.

“Sanjiiii!” Luffy chimes, and suddenly all eyes are on him. “I thought you had work in the morning?”

“My bad, it was a night shift,” Sanji lies, and sits down next to Nami. He orders a bottle of wine and ignores the fleeting thought of side effects, since honestly, he’s way past that point now.

“So what did you guys do at Six Flags?” Nami says, in that sly, fake-innocent way, and Sanji squints at her over his wine glass.

“Rode some roller coasters,” he replies, nonchalant as fuck, and doesn’t look at Zoro a few seats away. He can’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling in his body from knowing that he has to drive up to Stapleton for illegal meds, that’s just unreal. Why did they have to shut down his easiest way to get drugs? Well, that’s probably why they closed it, right there. But still.

He listens to the group chat for a while, Usopp asking Zoro when his “big game” is, though Sanji has no recollection of hearing about that at all. It sounds like a big deal. He’s two thirds into the bottle.

“Who was that pretty girl you met today?” he asks, and Nami looks at him with suspicion, as if forgetting for a second that he’s the gayest man alive.

“That’s Vivi, she’s a friend from college,” she says, sipping on her whiskey. “Think I have a shot?”

Sanji grins, he loves this shit. “You have a crush?”

“I’m in love,” Nami says dramatically, fanning her face as she grins back at Sanji. “No, but really, she’s so great, it’s unreal.”

Sanji smiles and they toast, to love, and it’s fine. Everything’s fine.

 

The next day Sanji wakes up at noon. He hasn’t slept much and he feels sick, dreading the trip to Stapleton more than he even imagined.

He feeds his cat and pats her on the head, before he gets dressed and stumbles down the stairs. It’s really cold, of course, and Sanji’s piece of shit car won’t start. He swears and rests his forehead on the steering wheel. This is just perfect. He moves to get a smoke from his coat and can’t believe it when he realizes that he’s all out.

He pops two of his last Klonopin and decides that, fine, he’ll just walk if that’s how it’s gonna be. Except that it would take an entire day, and he’s not stupid. Luffy has a car, maybe he can take him.

“Hi!” Luffy answers when Sanji calls him, in his usually excited manner. He’s an awful texter, he uses lots of abbreviations and acronyms that Sanji doesn’t understand, so he’s learned over time that it’s just easier to call.

“Hey Luffy,” Sanji says, leaning on his car while he pictures it being compressed into a little square piece of metal in the scrapyard. It’s a very satisfying image.

“I need a favor, are you free?”

“Actually, I’m at a party,” Luffy laughs, and Sanji should have seen this coming, even though it’s one o’clock on a weekday. “What was it you needed?”

Sanji sighs and tells him never mind, he’ll fix it some other way.

Usopp is at uni, so is Nami, and that concludes his list of potential rescuers. A cab would cost a fortune and he can’t even afford a new pack of cigarettes at the moment. God damn, he wants one so bad. All he can spare right now is the ferry ride to Stapleton and back, and of course, the drugs. This whole situation is just hilariously pathetic.

As he walks the streets he thinks about how fucking lonely he really is. Sanji Black, twenty-four years old, lonely, drug-addict. Three friends. Things are really looking great lately. He doesn’t fucking know what to do, he has to get there by three, otherwise he’ll lose his deal and it’s a real pain to even get one these days. In the middle of his mental breakdown on a bench, his phone vibrates, and he’s very surprised to see the name _Roronoa Zoro_ on the screen. They’ve texted two, maybe three times in all the years they’ve known of each other, and those times were all very impersonal and about Luffy and his weird disappearances.

_“Lu texted me, u need a ride?”_

This is perplexing in a number of ways. First of all, he didn’t even tell Luffy what he needed him for. Secondly, the use of _“Lu”_ is incredibly annoying somehow. Lastly, what the fuck does this mean?

He gets another text.

_“I’m at the usual gym on the corner, are you far?”_

Okay, so this is how it is now, what the fucking hell, Sanji wants to scream. Why is Zoro texting him out of nowhere, offering him a ride like this is something normal? He can’t have Zoro drive him fucking one and a half hours to Stapleton and back. He can’t steal more than three hours out of Zoro’s day, they aren’t even friends, this isn’t possible and it also calls for Sanji to answer to this fucking nightmare of a text.

_“Luffy was wrong, sorry, don’t need a ride”_

He briefly considers adding a smiley face to make it less rude, but this whole situation is a mess and he’s not a smiley face kind of guy anyway, it would just make things weirder. He sighs, and puts his phone away. Suddenly it buzzes again, Sanji can’t believe this isn’t over and hopes for a simple “ok”.

_“Dude stop being a jackass. I’ll take u, now where r u.”_

 

The passenger seat of Zoro’s car is uncharted territory for Sanji. They all have their spots in this car when they drive to concerts, and this is always Luffy’s seat. He’s never been here, right next to Zoro, who by the way just got out of the fucking shower, and everything is upside down right now.

“Stapleton, huh,” Zoro says, wet hair dripping water on his face. “I see.”

“What do you mean _I see,_ ” Sanji replies, staring out of the window as if that will make him forget that it’s Zoro in the seat next to him.

“You need a fix.”

Sanji doesn’t respond to that. At first. “I don’t _need_ anything.”

“Right.”

It’s unnerving to realise that everyone apparently knows he’s a fucking junkie. He really thought he was a bit more cool about it.

“Anyway, me going to Stapleton doesn’t necessarily mean I’m getting drugs,” Sanji mumbles, and feels ridiculous. He sounds like a stubborn kid.

“Right,” Zoro says again, that bastard.

They stand in line for the ferry, and Sanji absent-mindedly pats his pocket where his cigs usually are. It feels wrong and unnatural that they aren’t there. Makes him nervous.

“You ever been? To Stapleton, I mean.”

Sanji doesn’t know what he’s doing right now, must be the nerves talking. Zoro looks at him with evident surprise.

“Yeah, I have a couple of times. Just drove through, though.”

“Right,” Sanji retorts, almost mockingly, and Zoro actually smiles a little at that.

 

They get there much faster than Sanji thinks is fair, to be honest. Zoro keeps playing nineties rap in the car, and it’s terrifying just sitting there while Wu-Tang Clan invites them to the “Wu-Tang zone”. Which is just hilarious, really, Zoro. Thanks for that. As if this wasn’t a scarring experience already.

“Ready to enter the Chambers?” Zoro says, obviously joking, but still.

“You wish,” Sanji frowns, not particularly enjoying all the Wu-Tang jokes. “I’m going to a semi-safe neighborhood.”

“Call if you need backup.”

Now it’s impossible to tell if Zoro’s joking or not. “Whatever.”

He gets dropped off at the end of the street his dealer’s in, and his pulse has never been this high. Sanji’s been in fights before, hell, he actually had a reputation for it in high school. Never been on good terms with his anger. He can defend himself alright, but this is different, he’s coming in completely blind, virtually anything could be waiting for his dumb ass to walk in here.

Thankfully it isn’t virtually anything, just a very sketchy and jumpy stoner guy. The deal is over and done with pretty fast, he seems to be in as much of a hurry as Sanji is.

“You got any smokes?” Sanji asks, on a total limb, after the Klonopin is safely in his pocket. The guy looks at him with pupils stretched so wide, it’s uncomfortable to look at.

“I only deal meds and meth.”

“Alright, thank you, sir,” Sanji nods, and gets the hell out of there as fast as he can.

Back in the car with Zoro, the silence is palpable. Sanji can’t believe how this day turned out, sitting in Zoro’s car with dosages of Klonopin for three months tucked in his coat.

Somehow he can tell that Zoro wants to know what the fuck is going on. If the situation was reversed he probably would have wondered too, but at the same time he never would have involved himself at all in the first place.

“It’s nothing serious,” Sanji says weakly, because strangely he feels like he has to, and Zoro nods slightly. He doesn’t play any music on the ride home.

 

Maybe Zoro is a little pissed. In the drunk sense, not the mad sense. Actually, no, he is a bit mad too. He can see Sanji in his peripheral vision at the bar, and he’s just sitting there, spaced as fuck, and it’s annoying. He’s not sure why it irks him so much.

“Luffy,” he mumbles, as Luffy reaches past him to finish his half-drunk beer. “Pool?”

“Sure, Zo!” Luffy grins, and drinks it down. Nothing like a nice, drunken game of pool to take your mind off whatever it is that’s bothering you.

Okay, let’s be real for a second here, let’s not go in circles, Zoro knows why he’s drunk and angry. Angry with Sanji, in fact. Because that idiot sits there every week and fucking destroys himself on drugs and… He doesn’t know where this sudden _care_ comes from either but whatever, this is ridiculous. They’re not friends. It’s not his place. But he’s angry either way.

“Luffy, Lu,” Zoro says, and it sounds a bit incoherent when it comes out of his mouth. “What the hell is Sanji doing?”

Luffy shrugs, and shoots the cue ball. It sends the others scattering in all directions and Zoro doesn’t think he’s been this drunk in a very long time. It’s a bit hard to keep up.

“Chilling?” Luffy then says, in reference to Sanji, who’s still just sitting there like a fucking ghost.

“Yeah,” Zoro mumbles, and tries to shoot the striped three-ball in a hole. He misses by several inches. “I bet he fucking is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is about a band - heavily inspired by Cymbals Eat Guitars, who I love. So that's where I've stolen the lyrics (and the whole entire plot), 'cause they're just so damn inspiring. But I do really love them, and if you're into kind of muddy, weird indie rock, check them out! Lyrics are from Jackson and Chambers. I think.  
> (And guys, I'm not from New York or even the US, I just write you know? So if anything is very off about my descriptions of things, that's why...)
> 
> I tried to write Zoro a little different from how I usually write him, a bit more relaxed maybe? Idk but I like it. It suits him.  
> And yeah, almost all my stories start with Sanji doing something. He is also always the biggest Emo Lord in the universe, and I know that canonically his name is Vinsmoke Sanji, but whatever, I stopped watching One Piece before they got to reveal that. To me he will always be Sanji Blackleg, aka Sanji Black ~  
> Lastly, kids, don't do drugs!! Drugs are bad!  
> \- M


	2. Have a Heart

The road is quiet on the drive home from their second gig that month. Luffy’s also quiet, for once, only chiming in occasionally to comment on something Usopp says, or laugh at Nami and Zoro. It’s in the middle of the night. Sanji feels like the world in its entirety is moving slower, they’re just floating along, and Zoro’s playing some kind of psychedelia on the shitty van speakers. He’s unpredictable like that, and Sanji adds that to his mental Zoro facts list:

  
3\. Has no specific taste in music.

  
It’s kind of nice. You never know what you get, but it’s usually not anything really awful. Sanji leans his head on Nami’s shoulder, and she doesn’t even notice all that much, she just talks on about the gig and how good the crowd was tonight, and maybe we’ll get really huge, guys!

He may be on several doses of Klonopin and all that, but it feels like there’s a much needed moment of peace inside of him, like it all is sleeping right now, all the crap has just taken the evening off.

That is until Luffy suddenly starts talking about football again.

“Hey Zo, your game, isn’t it this weekend?”  
  
Zoro smiles. Sanji doesn’t even see it, he just stares at the back of his head, but he knows exactly how his face looks every time football is the subject. Like it’s his fucking birthday.  
  
“Yeah, you guys gonna come?”  
  
Everyone kind of cheers and pats Zoro’s shoulder and whatnot, and Sanji just sits there and feels all his inner peace drift away.  
  
“You’ll come too, right Sanji?” Luffy grins at him, and Sanji nods slowly, even though he wants nothing more than to come up with a half-assed excuse. He feels like he owes it to Zoro now, God dammit.  
  
“Sure. Okay.”

 

The night of the game comes way too quickly. The weekdays go by like a blur, Sanji can’t even remember what he’s been doing. Was he at work? He’s probably been so jacked on pills half the time that he’s just stared at the walls. The thought of going to Zoro’s game has really put an unnecessary amount of stress into Sanji’s already stress-ridden daily life.  
  
“You ready?” Usopp hollers, and Sanji looks at himself in the mirror. He looks like the living dead, unusually pale even for him, and he just shudders. Best not to look. The edges of him are almost blurry in the mirror, like he’s looking at a fast moving image. At least his clothes are clean, though nothing can quite make up for how sunken and gray his face looks.  
  
“In a minute.”  
  
He grabs his leather jacket and thinks, whatever, who cares what he looks like? Absolutely no one, that’s who.  
  
In the car, Nami looks him up and down. “What’s with the grim look?”  
  
Sanji frowns. It’s not his fault he looks grim by default these days.  
  
“Sorry, I didn’t get the red and gold memo,” he mumbles, gesturing at her and Usopp's’ ridiculous face paint and matching clothes. Usopp’s paint says “GO TIGERS!” in capitalized letters, and strangely the O is shaped like a lion’s head.  
  
“I thought they were the Lions,” Nami shrugs, when she notices Sanji’s expression, and lights a cig. “I could swear Zoro used to be a lion before. Had to improvise a bit.”  
  
Usopp laughs. “We didn’t have time to change it.”  
  
Sanji pretends he doesn’t care what Zoro’s team is called.

 

When they get there, Sanji tries his best not to think too much about, well, anything. It’s all very stressful, and when they finally sit down, he notices he’s holding a tray of nachos, and Usopp has a huge foam finger that he’s waving around.  
  
“Jesus, cut that out,” Nami hisses, when the foam finger almost knocks a cup of soda out of her hands. “The game hasn’t even started, Usopp.”  
  
“I know,” Usopp grins. “I’m just excited.”  
  
“Where’s Luffy?” Sanji says, seemingly surprising them.  
  
“Oh, he’ll be here,” Nami replies, and that’s that.  
  
Sanji really tries everything to not think about Zoro. He tries to think of a way to make this fun, maybe he can write a song about it. No, that would be way too obvious. A vague song, then. Reeeally fucking vague.  
  
There are too many people here. It’s claustrophobic, and Sanji tries to map out the way to the closest exit, just in case he has to throw up or something. His hands are shaking, making the nachos rattle suspiciously. Nami notices, but she tactfully doesn’t say anything.  
  
This is ridiculous. Sanji doesn’t know the first thing about football, he doesn’t care, yet he’s wound up here because Zoro was nice to him once, and now he’s in debt. Fucking Zoro, with his stupid CD collection that makes no sense, his ridiculous football-induced grins and his stubborn niceness. Sanji wishes so hard that the whole Stapleton trip had never happened.  
  
Suddenly it’s starting, and this game must really be a big deal, because the players are running onto the field while their names are called on the speakers. Or maybe that’s completely normal, he sure wouldn’t know the difference. Sanji’s stomach flips uncomfortably when “Number eleven, Roronoa Zoro!” is called, and Zoro turns to face them, pointing and waving. Nami and Usopp are cheering and jumping in their seats, and then all of a sudden Luffy is there too, with a huge banner that says “ZORO” in red letters. Sanji looks down at Zoro, who is already looking back up at them, with that stupid grin on his face. He starts doing poses, making both the players and the audience laugh, and Luffy is shouting so loud it’s probably heard on the other side of the field.  
  
“YEEEEAH, Zoro! You’re the man! That’s my friend right there! Number eleven! The touchdown master! The God of football!!!”  
  
Sanji can’t take his eyes off him, Zoro looks so happy, and he shoots them a thumbs up before he has to put on his helmet. Usopp takes it upon himself to explain to Sanji what’s going on.  
  
“This is the kick-off,” he says, pointing with his comically huge foam finger, almost poking Nami in the eye. “Luffy, what position is Zoro again?”  
  
“Um,” Luffy says, through some kind of snacks as usual. It seems to be Sanji’s nachos, and he has no idea how or when that happened. “I think he’s wide receiver this year, he’s been switching back and forth.”  
  
It takes a while before any of them actually decipher what he’s saying.  
  
“Right, wide receiver,” Usopp says, and proceeds to explain to Sanji what the hell that means, and what his job on the field is. Sanji nods, but he can’t keep up, plus, it’s much more interesting to just watch Zoro running down there.  
  
It’s mesmerizing in a way Sanji hasn’t experienced before, and he doesn’t think his brain has had a dopamine blast like this since about 1993. Zoro looks like he was born to do this. He runs faster than everyone, and Sanji quickly understands that he’s nothing short of a crowd favorite. He’s unstoppable.  
  
It turns out to be a very exciting and painfully even game, and nearing the end, Sanji can’t help but notice that even he is into it, and actually gives a fuck what the result is. He’s standing next to Nami, who is absolutely screaming her head off, and has stolen Usopp’s foam finger because he wasn’t “fully utilizing it”. The game is at a critical point, at timeout, with only a few seconds left on the clock. If the Tigers manage to get points now they’ll win. Everyone is going nuts, and Sanji lets himself stop thinking.  
  
“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles, when timeout is over, and the players line up again. Adrenaline is making his head rush. “They’re gonna get this, right?”  
  
Nami looks at him and grins. “Have you seen Zoro run or what?”  
  
It starts again, and everything happens at lightning speed. Sanji’s eyes are too slow to follow it all, but he definitely sees the white digits on Zoro’s back blurring when he sprints down the flank. Then the Tigers quarterback is forced to throw a desperate pass, that at first looks completely impossible, until Zoro magically cuts through the air and crashes hard into the grass, right past the touchdown line, clutching the ball.  
  
The crowd goes absolutely insane. Sanji looks at his friends, and feels genuinely happy. It’s such a huge emotion, he has to sit down for a moment. Luffy looks like he might actually cry.

 

When they get back on the ground, they go to meet Zoro outside the locker room. He’s standing there, still in his uniform, helmet under his arm. He looks almost incomprehensibly beautiful, streaks of grass across his jaw.  
  
“Zoro!” Luffy yells, and runs over to him, practically jumping into his arms. Zoro laughs. “That was crazy! You were so amazing! And fast!”  
  
“Luffy almost cried,” Sanji says, and Zoro looks at him with actual joy. Nami grins.  
  
“Of happiness,” Luffy clarifies, like it was necessary. “And I stand by that.”  
  
Usopp laughs and it’s just one of those rare moments, where everything suddenly seems so easy. Sanji puts his hands in his pockets, and buries his stupid smile in his scarf.  
  
Some of Zoro’s teammates come over, and start lifting him up on their shoulders, screaming “Tigers! Tigers! Tigers!”  
  
Zoro just laughs and yells, and squints at the sun. Nami pokes Sanji’s arm, and smiles at him.  
  
“You ready to get going?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sanji says, “Just thought I’d use the bathroom first, can you show me the way?”  
  
They agree to meet the others at the bar later, and part ways.  
  
“It’s right through here,” Nami explains. They walk in pleasant silence for a while, passing a small crowd of cheerleaders. Sanji hears a snippet of their conversation.  
  
“Do you know if Roronoa Zoro’s dating anyone? I was thinking about asking him out.”  
  
“I’m not sure, but I think he might be going out with that Kuina girl.”  
  
Just like that, Sanji is violently ripped back to reality where Zoro is a straight football player, who might even have some girlfriend he’s kept secret from them, and Sanji is a loser with a childish and unrealistic crush. Nami looks at him with poorly concealed worry, and he forces a smile.  
  
“Hey, I’ll meet up with you guys later, I’ll find the way. Thanks.”  
  
Her eyes follow him as he leaves around the corner.

 

He actually does meet up with them at the bar, and he ignores the meaningful look in Nami’s eyes. Zoro still looks like the happiest person on earth, and it’s fair, he deserves it. Sanji sits down next to Usopp and tries not to think about what Zoro’s girlfriend might look like. It’s not working out too well.  
  
“I was just saying how unreal that catch at the end was,” Usopp grins, and lifts his glass in Zoro’s direction.  
  
“Spectacular,” Nami agrees, and they all clink their glasses together. Sanji orders whiskey from the bar, even though everyone else is drinking beers. Whatever.  
  
They drink and talk for awhile, and Sanji sips at his whiskey in silence. Zoro is too fucking beautiful right now, ethereal even, and Sanji’s mind keeps replaying that conversation he overheard from the cheerleaders. He might be dating someone. He might have a girlfriend.  
  
As if on cue, a group of girls enter the bar, and even in the dim light, it’s clear who they’re here for.  
  
“Roronoa Zoro!” One of them starts, like she’s surprised he’s here. “Congratulations on the win, you were just incredible.”  
  
Zoro laughs and looks like a deer in the headlights. “Thanks.”  
  
Sanji downs the rest of his whiskey.  
  
“I was just wondering if I could buy you a drink?”  
  
The girls all giggle and Nami looks at Sanji like she’s afraid he might spontaneously combust. He can’t watch this.  
  
“I’m going to the… bathroom,” Sanji mumbles, and quickly shuffles out of there before he can hear Zoro’s response, whatever it might be.  
  
Usopp and Nami find him smoking outside on the curb, and the amount of pity in their eyes is almost rude.  
  
“Just don’t,” Sanji says, and flicks ashes on his pants by accident. His hands are shaking. “Don’t say anything. It’s fine.”

 

A few days later, Nami is leaning over the counter of the bar Sanji works in, giving him a very serious look.  
  
“You’ve got to get over him, you know,” she says, eyes a bit unfocused.  
  
To be precise it’s more of a bar/record store, which by the way is not a good combination. He spent last afternoon cleaning spilled beer off of Super Trouper and a number of other, more unfortunate ABBA records.  
  
“You think,” Sanji deadpans, voice dripping with sarcasm. Nami snorts, drunk in that obvious way. She’s got her own problems, drinking on a Tuesday night. It’s been hours since she got here, and Sanji doesn’t have the heart to ask why, if she doesn’t tell him on her own. It feels weirdly like they’re in some light-hearted sitcom for a moment, like he’s looking at the two of them from the outside. Two friends at a bar slash record store, talking about boys, seemingly such a perfect image.  
  
“No, no, seriously,” Nami continues, clutching his hand. “Sanji. Be reasonable.”  
  
“You think I’m capable of reason?” he muses, wiping glasses slightly too fast. “I’m not so sure.”  
  
“It’s just a matter of finding someone else,” she says, and that’s actually not that stupid. “This Zoro thing isn’t a crush anymore, Sanji, it’s an unhealthy obsession. There are so many other guys out there!”  
  
It’s his turn to snort now. Like he isn’t fucking aware of that already. He wants to tell her, but he knows she’s just trying to help. To be a friend. Plus, she’s hammered.  
  
“Yeah,” he sighs, instead, and serves one of the regulars another beer. “What do you think, Shanks?”  
  
“You never know,” Shanks smiles, and sips his beer. “But luck will find you in the end, either way.”  
  
Such a classic Shanks reply.  
  
“I hope so,” Sanji mumbles, and looks at the clock on the wall. “Alright guys, last call.”

 

The night after, he’s off work, sitting on his bed with a cigarette and an old ashtray. He’s been giving Nami’s drunken advice a lot of thought. Maybe that’s what will get him out of this shitty mental hole, to go out and try to meet someone. It’s worth a shot anyway, it’s not like he has any other plans tonight.  
  
He sends a text to Nami:  
  
_Hey, wanna go out?_  
  
She replies yes within seconds, and they agree to meet at a bar a few blocks away. Shit, okay. Time to put on decent pants that aren’t covered in cigarette ashes. He pops another pill, and tries to focus on his own reflection in the mirror.

 

In the bar, Sanji can physically feel his own nerves. There’s a reason he doesn’t do this regularly, he feels claustrophobic, sweaty, and pretty much uncomfortable in every way possible. Nami, on the other hand, looks like she’s right in her element, flirting with the guys and girls alike, already a couple beers in. She never has to pay for anything, it’s kind of amazing. Sanji smiles, despite feeling weird as hell.  
  
“I’m getting another,” he mumbles in her ear, and he’s not sure she even notices, caught up in a girl with pretty eyes.  
  
“Hi, a beer,” Sanji says, surprised by the short line at the bar. He’s not sure what to do now. It’s been a while since he was at a bar that wasn’t the regular one, and it’s been even longer since he actually went out. He doesn’t particularly like himself when he’s in situations like this, he always puts on a facade that he’s not even sure where he gets from.  
  
He realizes that the only way he’s getting out of here as fast as possible is to find someone who will take him home.  
  
“Hey,” he says, to some guy who looks like he might at least be into dudes. Sanji’s hands are shaking, and he smiles in a way he hopes looks attractive and not completely insane. “I’m Sanji.”

 

The next morning Sanji stumbles into his own apartment, high on the feeling of being liked, for a change. Touched. Looked at, like he’s someone worth looking at.  
  
He doesn’t even remember the name of the guy, just barely how his hands felt on his hips. Firm.

 

Unfortunately, like most things in Sanji’s life, the whole “going out to find love” thing gets completely out of hand.  
  
It’s Usopp this time, who’s looking at him like he’s pretending not to be afraid of him. Sanji can understand that. Hell, he’s a little frightened himself.  
  
“I haven’t seen you in weeks,” Usopp starts, voice unsure. “What’s going on?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sanji says, and he really means it, but his voice sounds flat and dead. “I’ve been… Out. A lot.”  
  
Nami, on his left, shakes her head. A tension hangs silently in the air between them.  
  
The bar is almost empty, it’s still early, and Zoro is nowhere to be seen. Sanji has seen very little of any of them lately. He almost asks where Zoro is, but he catches himself. How pathetic would that be? Either way, he’s probably off somewhere with his secret girlfriend.  
  
“Look, man,” Luffy says now, fiddling with some peanuts. He has that unusually serious look on his face. “We’re worried about you. For real.”  
  
Sanji looks at them, one by one, and wishes that there was something he could say to make them understand. Instead, he opts for easing their minds, because he doesn’t want it to be like this. He doesn’t want to be popping pills just to get some fucking sleep. He doesn’t want to be out fucking strangers every night, and end up feeling even worse than the night before. He doesn’t want to feel like a pile of shit all the time. But life, sadly, isn’t perfect.  
  
“Hey, it’s not that bad,” he says, and tries to smile comfortingly. It feels unfamiliar. “Don’t worry about me, I mean it. It’s all good.”  
  
When he leaves, the three of them share a dark glance. Luffy gets up, and paces angrily.  
  
“I don’t know what to do,” Nami says, frowning. “He won’t listen anymore.”  
  
Luffy sits down and orders a beer. “I think it’s time to bring out the big guns,” he mumbles, and Usopp looks unsurely at him.  
  
“You mean…?”  
  
“Yep. The mean, green machine.”  
  
Usopp shakes his head with a smile. “Is that a good idea?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Luffy says, and downs the rest of his beer. “But we’re out of options, aren’t we?”

 

Sanji’s high. He’s just floating through the club, as if his body doesn’t have legs but just fades out at the bottom. He feels electric, and looks around. Who’s it gonna be tonight? Who’s it gonna be? The words echo in his head like a song. If his friends weren’t so mad at him, maybe it could be, one day. Now he doesn’t even know if he’s in the band anymore. If there is a band.  
  
He shakes the thoughts away, and focuses on his mission. He sees someone who’s never been here before, at least not at the same time as Sanji. He’s tall and broad, dark long-ish hair, and when he turns around and his face shows, Sanji’s mind is made up.

He’s beautiful.  
  
“Sanji,” Sanji says, and reaches out his hand. He has to shout to be heard, and the man smiles at him.  
  
“Hi. I’m Ace.”

 

For once, he ends up in his own flat. He doesn’t know what time it is, he’s just drifting along, and it feels good. They make out for a while, and it’s… different. It’s not as hasty as the other times, like Sanji has gotten used to, it’s like a slow burn, and everywhere Ace touches feels like it’s on fire. Eventually, they’re both shirtless, Sanji’s panting, and he hasn’t wanted anyone this much since… Well, let’s not go down that road right now.  
  
“We don’t have to… Do anything, you know,” Ace says, a little out of breath too, and the sincerity and tenderness in those words make Sanji’s world spin a little. No one’s said that to him before. It makes him stop to look at Ace’s face, and he looks straight back.  
  
His eyes are almost the same shade of brown as Zoro’s.  
  
“That’s… I’m,” Sanji mumbles. Suddenly everything feels altered, somehow. Ace has lots of freckles on his skin, on his face, his shoulders, probably everywhere.  
  
“I mean it,” He says, and even smiles. He’s touching Sanji’s neck in a way that is almost unsure, like he thinks he might scare him away. What’s he seeing that none of Sanji’s other nightly companions have?  
  
“I know,” Sanji replies. “Thanks.”  
He’s about to continue that sentence and say that, hey, he wants to, let’s get to it, but his voice gets stuck. Instead, he suddenly starts crying, like someone flipped a switch, quiet at first, but after a while, he’s sobbing into Ace’s shoulder.  
  
“Hey,” Ace mumbles, into Sanji’s hair. “It’s okay, really…”  
  
He holds him tight, and Sanji doesn’t feel like he deserves to be treated this nicely. He’s such a huge fucking mess.  
  
“It’s not about you,” he croaks, when the tears finally stop, embarrassed as hell. “I mean… It’s just been... Tough. Lately. Shit, I’m sorry, this isn’t your problem.”  
  
He gets up, and Ace looks at him with his kind, brown eyes. “I can listen if you want?”  
  
It’s such a surreal situation, he feels dizzy, looking at this shirtless almost-stranger on his couch, who wants to listen to him talk about his sad life, for some reason.  
  
“I’m a good listener.” Ace leans back on the couch and grins, and God, he’s beautiful.  
  
Sanji looks around, it’s like he’s missing something. He feels sickeningly sober.  
  
“Okay.”

 

In the early hours of the morning, Sanji wakes to the smell of bacon. Which is weird, because he’s in bed, he’s certainly not making anything. Then he remembers last night, and notices the vacant spot in his bed where Ace had been through the night. Warm and solid.  
  
He stumbles out in the living room slash kitchen, and sees Ace standing there, shirtless, humming a cheerful tune as he flips eggs in a pan he must’ve cleaned. Sanji’s cat is circling between his legs.  
  
“Morning!” He says, when he notices Sanji just standing there like an idiot. “How do you like your eggs? Well, I’ve already turned these over so I hope it’s fine either way.”  
  
Sanji nods, not sure what he’s supposed to say. “Thanks.”  
  
At a loss for things to do, he wanders around and tries to find his shirt. His hands are shaking, and he knows that the box of Klonopin is in the bathroom. Before he can get there though, there’s a knock on the door, which startles both him and Ace.  
  
“Who’s that?” Ace asks, but Sanji doesn’t say anything. He has no idea. It’s eight or so in the morning, and no one ever comes to his apartment anyway.  
  
“Sanji?” A voice booms, and he shivers at the sound. It’s Zoro. What the flying fuck? He knocks again, harder. “Hey! I know you’re in there.”  
  
Sanji doesn’t particularly want to find out why Zoro’s here, angry at eight in the morning, or why he’s here at all, but he opens the door either way. Zoro, who is mid-knock, stares at him.  
  
It hurts a bit to look at him, he looks heartbreakingly gorgeous as ever, even if he’s angry. It’s not like he could ever forget how handsome Zoro is, but he hasn’t seen him for a long time. It’s kind of a shock to the system.  
  
“Hey,” Sanji says weakly, rubbing his eyes. His shirt is only half on, he’s shaking, and Zoro’s brows furrow.  
  
“What is wrong with you?” Zoro mumbles, staring at his shaking hands. It sounds more like an accusation than a question.  
  
“I don’t…”  
  
Zoro pushes past him, and into his apartment. “I’m sick of this shit Sanji, we’re all worried about you, Luffy told me to talk to you and I couldn’t fucking get a hold of you, your phone is turned off, I thought something had happened-”  
  
Ace looks like a deer in the headlights, smiling weakly at Zoro from where he stands in the kitchen, shirtless and everything. Sanji whimpers.  
  
“Who the fuck is this?” Zoro asks, rudely pointing at Ace who does a little wave.  
  
“Ace,” he says, motioning to shake Zoro’s hand while Sanji just watches in horror. “Nice to meet you.”  
  
Zoro looks at Sanji like he’s the most despicable thing in the universe.  
  
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me right now. ARE YOU SERIOUS?”  
  
Sanji doesn’t know what to do, he just watches Ace retract his outstretched hand.  
  
“I’m running around trying to find you all night thinking you might lie OVERDOSED IN SOME FUCKING DITCH and you’re here, fucking some guy?! Is that it?”  
  
Sanji feels his blood boil. His hands are shaking uncontrollably now, and Ace looks almost as angry.  
  
“Hey, dude, calm down,” Ace says, staring coldly at Zoro.  
  
“Do me a favor and get out,” Zoro replies, gesturing to the door. “Just leave. Now.”  
  
Ace looks like he might punch Zoro straight in the face, so Sanji quickly steps between them and mumbles to Ace that he’s sorry, it’s fine, I’ll call you.  
  
They stand there in tense silence while Ace finds his clothes and leaves. As soon as the door closes Sanji stares at Zoro, and feels angrier than he has in a long time. In a weird way, it’s nice to actually feel something other than the usual scary emptiness.  
  
“You fucking asshole. Who do you think you are, coming to my apartment and sending my… sending him away? What fucking right do you have?”  
  
He wants to scream at Zoro but he can’t, instead, his voice is cold as ice. Zoro looks at him like he’s mostly disappointed.  
  
“I’m your fucking friend. That’s what fucking right I have. And you’re right, yeah, I’m so sorry that I’ve been looking for you all night, worrying, thinking you might be fucking dead somewhere, God, how could I be such a dick.”  
  
He shakes his head in disbelief, and Sanji walks over to him, with full intent to punch him in the stomach.  
  
“I can’t remember ASKING, ZORO? When did I FUCKING ASK to be babysat by you, how could I fucking know what you’re up to!? I don’t need your help, least of all. Why the fuck do you care?”  
  
Zoro grips Sanji’s arm so hard it hurts, and he’s forced to look into his eyes. It hurts way more than the arm.  
  
“I don’t know what I fucking did to you, Sanji,” Zoro mumbles, and for a second, Sanji wonders if he might cry. They’ve never been this close, noses almost touching. It’s terrifying.  
  
“I really don’t know. But you need to cut this shit out. Nami was crying last night when you didn’t pick up the phone.” Zoro lets go of his arm, like he can’t even bear to look at him anymore.  
  
“Stop being such an egocentric fucking dickhead.”  
  
Then he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... I said I was gonna update this in what, January??? That was insane. I apologize. I think I've been putting it off for so long because I'm still not totally happy with it. It's not my best work, I'm aware, but I've stared at this for months now and I feel like I just wanna move on. Get this out there.  
> Anyway, this is still a Sanji/Zoro thing, I pinky promise, but I love Ace and I wanted him to be a part of this from the beginning. So he is! But yeah it's not gonna be a thing. . . . . .Or is it? Gotta keep you on your toes. Hah.  
> Also, I've started naming chapters after Cymbals Eat Guitars songs, because I'm a huge doof and I feel so inspired every time I listen to them. Really, I have them to thank for this even getting posted at all. 
> 
> Hope you like it! -M


	3. Dancing Days

_The day before, around 6 pm_

Zoro enters his own apartment, and frowns at a jacket thrown right in front of the door. It’s fucking Yosaku’s, as usual, and Zoro would love to just kick his ass, once and for all. Messy bastard. The light is out again, but he knows this place so well it doesn’t really matter if he can see the floor or not. Except when people’s damn jackets are there.

“Yosaku!” He yells, toeing his shoes off and putting them in the general direction of where the shoes are supposed to be. It’s not like Zoro is such a neat freak, not at all, but there’s a line. Jackets shouldn’t be on the floor, not in the shared spaces at least, and this isn’t the first time.

“Hey, Johnny,” He says, when he notices him on the couch. He’s in the middle of a game on the tv, and only grunts in response.

“Where’s Yosaku?”

“Dunno,” Johnny mumbles. “At uni?”

“It’s past six,” Zoro says, and opens the fridge. The only thing they have is beer and a questionable piece of cheese, so he grabs a beer, and drinks the whole can in one go. It’s been a long day. Their apartment is small, one of the four walls of the living room/kitchen is raw brick, and it’s cold as hell in the winter. It’s shit, but they get by somehow. Yosaku is working on a degree in engineering, and honestly, Zoro doesn’t really know what Johnny does. He has some kind of kiosk job at night or something. They’ve known each other for a long time. It sort of feels like they’re his younger brothers.

“Anyway,” he continues, sitting down next to Johnny. He looks like crap, as usual. “You can tell Yosaku to stop throwing his shit everywhere, because if I find one more thing on the floor after four hours of doing intervals on the field I’ll actually kill him.”

Johnny laughs. “Tell him yourself?”

Zoro notices his phone blinking on the table, and picks it up. He must have left it here this morning. There’s a message from Luffy:

_hey zo, need your help asap. talk 2 sanji?_

Zoro looks at the screen, ignores the weird feeling he gets when he sees Sanji’s name, and tries to understand what exactly Luffy means but this. It’s easier to just call, so he does, and shushes Johnny who shouts something obscene trying to be funny.

“I didn’t see your message until now, I just found my phone. What are you talking about?”

Luffy hums. “Well, have you seen Sanji lately?”

Zoro hasn’t actually seen him since the game, and has tried his best not to wonder why too much. He still recalls the look on Sanji’s face when he left the bar that night, and it makes him angry. For some reason. “Not really, no.”

“If you did, you would understand,” Luffy says, and pauses. “I don’t know exactly what’s wrong, I just know how fucked up he looks. It’s like he’s on a different planet. Nami says he’s been out every night lately. We’ve tried talking to him, but it doesn’t seem to help. He’s doing some kind of drugs and it’s really bad.”

Zoro sighs and the mental image of Sanji in the car with him pops into his head, the way he sat there, all fidgety. He feels responsible in a way.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I kind of figured. What makes you think he’ll listen to me though? He hates me.”

“Don’t know,” Luffy says, and once again, something in his voice makes Zoro squint in suspicion. “Just try. Please?”

Zoro sighs, again, and avoids looking at Johnny, who sits there with an annoying look on his face. “Okay, fine.”

He drinks two more beers before he feels like he can leave, and Johnny just looks at him funny, like he knows something that Zoro doesn’t about this whole situation.

“What?” Zoro asks, almost a little annoyed.

“Nothing,” Johnny replies, eyes fixed on his game. “Nothing at all.”

 

Zoro could drive, but even at the thought of doing that, Nami’s stern face pops into his head. He’s not allowed to drink and drive, even if he feels stone cold sober, she’s made that very clear. And he knows she’s right. So he walks, and it’s colder out than he thought. He’s only got a thin denim jacket on over his shirt, and he shudders below the pale streetlights.

Something’s bothering him. Like an itch under his skin that he can’t seem to locate. He knows it’s about Sanji, but he doesn’t understand the context of it. He just keeps seeing his face, how he’d looked at him after the game, it was fucking scary. Sanji had stood there, skinny and pale and out of place as usual, and smiled at him. And it was all Zoro could see then and there, even though all his friends were surrounding him, his teammates, his coach - all he could see was Sanji. How his hair rustled in the breeze, how his shoulders relaxed. Hands in his pockets, content, and then that smile that had never ever been directed at Zoro before, hell, Zoro’s not sure he’s seen that directed at anyone. The moment was only that, a moment, before he was carried off and Sanji was gone. But it had burned itself onto his brain, into some strange catalogue of little Sanji moments like that one. He’s not sure why his brain keeps an album of Sanji pictures, but it does. Like when they were driving, and Zoro had to concentrate to not turn his head and look at him. His sunken eyes, his skinny legs, his hands fidgeting in his lap. The way the light pushed through his hair and made it seem much lighter. A tattoo just barely visible under the edge of his t-shirt sleeve, after he’d taken off his jacket with shaking hands. Zoro couldn’t make out what it was, because he had to look at the road. But it was there, in the corner of his eye, and so was Sanji.

Then there was a moment at the bar after the game, when the girls entered, and Zoro caught a glimpse of how Sanji looked before he mumbled something and walked off. He looked years older than he was, staring into a glass of whiskey. It was almost like he wasn’t there with them, even though he sat with the group he was far away.

Zoro doesn’t try to understand why these images are there. As he walks, he checks his list of locations where Sanji might be, and turns a corner in pursuit of the nearest one. Frankly, he’s scared what he might find.

 

After many hours and many sweaty clubs, Zoro can check off all the points on his list. He’s standing in a bar right now, tapping on his phone, trying to find Nami’s number in his contacts. The screen brightness is almost on zero to save power, so it’s quite hard to see anything, and his battery is down to 8 percent.

“Hey, Nami,” he says, when he finally finds her number and she picks up. He notices some guy checking him out across the room, and tries harder to become one with the wall behind him.

“What?” Nami asks, and she clearly can’t hear him over the thumping bass. Zoro backs into a corner, not wanting to stand out in the cold.

“Have you talked to Luffy?” Zoro tries, speaking as clearly as he can. “I’m out looking for Sanji.”

“Yes,” Nami replies. “I heard.” She sounds strange.

“And now I’ve run out of clubs.”

“Great. Just great.”

Zoro frowns, and doesn’t understand at first that Nami is worried, and not just unimpressed with his efforts. “I’m really trying my best here,” he mumbles, and stares menacingly at the guy approaching him. He points to the phone, hoping that he will get the message. He doesn’t.

“Hold on Nami- Hey, I’m not interested,” Zoro says, irritated. It’s a bit unfair really, he is alone in a bar after all. But he doesn’t have time or patience to be understanding and polite right now.

The man looks offended and walks off.

“Sorry, there was, um. Anyway,” Zoro continues. “Where do I go next?”

Then he hears it, Nami’s crying. Fuck.

“Woah, hey, I didn’t mean to be crass,” he stutters, and Nami interrupts him.

“No, no… I’m just worried about that fucking moron,” she mumbles, and Zoro’s heart sinks. “I tried calling him, I’m sure you have too and he doesn’t pick up. I don’t know, Zoro, I’m not… At liberty to say… Fuck. It’s just been extreme lately. I’ve been thinking sometimes that it seems like he kind of just wants to end it all.”

Now Zoro’s heart is racing, and he moves toward the exit of the bar. It’s not like the thought hasn’t crossed his mind, but he refuses to consider it.

“He wouldn’t dare,” Zoro mumbles, half-jogging out of there. “He’s probably fine. I mean, he is. He is fine.” He hates lying, especially to Nami.

She sniffles. “I ought to kick his ass.”

“I’ll hold the camera,” Zoro jokes, and tries to not feel cold and scared. “Fuck it. I’ll just go to his apartment again. I’ll break in and wait if he’s not there.”

 

When he gets to Sanji’s apartment building, he almost knocks over an old lady in his hurry to get inside.

“Oh, sorry,” he exclaims, and manages to grab her before she tumbles over. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay dear,” she mumbles, and looks at him like he’s a different species. “Are you a friend of Sanji’s?”

Zoro blinks and tries to calm his heart rate. “Well, uh, yeah.”

“You just have that look,” she explains, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. “I just saw him, in the hall.”  
She’s clearly not at all abashed that she evidently spies on her neighbors. Zoro doesn’t complain. Instead, he starts jogging towards the stairs.

Outside of Sanji’s door for the second time that night, Zoro starts to feel the adrenaline in his body be replaced by anger. He’s been all over New York for this guy, someone who hates him, in sleazy clubs and creepy bars, he’s cold and tired and then Sanji turns out to be home, in his own fucking apartment. It’s a joke. Obviously it’s good that he’s alive, thank God, but otherwise, everything is shit. This could all have been avoided if the idiot could pick up his damn phone.

He knocks hard on the door, pressed against the frame on the side of the hinges.

“Sanji,” he shouts, the word foreign in his mouth now that it’s spoken directly to him. He can hear rustling in there. Talking?  
“Hey! I know you’re in there.”

Sanji opens the door, just when Zoro’s started knocking for the second time. He stares at him, and Sanji jolts, he looks like a fucking mess, shaking hands limp at his sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s jittering, and his shirt is on wrong, riding up at his left side. Zoro doesn’t look, almost doesn’t breathe for a second. Sanji looks like he’s lost.

“Hey,” he replies, voice hoarse and weak. Zoro feels like a shell of a person, like his insides were left outside.

“What is wrong with you?” he asks, not able to look into Sanji’s darting eyes. For a moment he wonders why he’s there. It feels so intrusive.

“I don’t…” Sanji says, almost like a sigh. It’s just not good enough, and Zoro moves on, into the room that is too small and too big at once, he steps over the edge of a rug on the floor that almost trips him, and he feels the anger rise again. He doesn’t know what to say so his mouth just starts without him.

“I’m sick of this shit Sanji, we’re all worried about you, Luffy told me to talk to you and I couldn’t fucking get a hold of you, your phone is turned off, I thought something had happened-”

And then he sees him, a shirtless guy in the kitchen part of the room that he had his back turned on until now. He’s tall and muscular, and looks like he’s a bit taken aback by the situation. His hair is black and tied in a loose knot on the back of his head. He fucking _smiles_.

“Who the fuck is this,” Zoro spits, staring.

“Ace,” the guy says, and looks like he’s about to come over to fucking shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Zoro feels like throwing up, and has to count to ten inside so he doesn’t fucking break something. He looks at Sanji, who looks like he’s actively trying to die on the spot.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me right now. ARE YOU SERIOUS?” Zoro yells, his voice booming, echoing in the room. “I’m running around trying to find you all night thinking you might lie OVERDOSED IN SOME FUCKING DITCH and you’re here, fucking some guy?! Is that it?”

“Hey, dude, calm down,” the Ace guy says, like he’s got any say in this. Zoro is about two seconds away from clocking him right in his straight teeth.

“Do me a favor and get out,” he says instead, and motions for the door, cause he’s a fucking adult and all. “Just leave. Now.”

Ace seems like he wants to punch him just as much, and Zoro almost wants him to, just so he could justify kicking his ass. Sanji steps between them and mumbles gently to Ace, and Zoro has to fucking stand there and watch Ace’s face soften at his words. Then he seems to locate a shirt, and finally leaves.

Sanji stares at him, a real stare this time, with feeling. “You fucking asshole. Who do you think you are, coming to my apartment and sending my… sending him away? What fucking right do you have?”

Zoro fights the urge to roll his eyes. Who does he think he is? Good fucking question, asshole. He doesn’t know either.

“I’m your fucking friend. That’s what fucking right I have. And you’re right, yeah, I’m so sorry that I’ve been looking for you all night, worrying, thinking you might be fucking dead somewhere, God, how could I be such a dick.”

The word friend slips from his lips before he can stop it. It makes him even angrier. Sanji looks like he wants to punch him now. It’s a popular look today.

“I can’t remember ASKING, ZORO? When did I FUCKING ASK to be babysat by you, how could I fucking know what you’re up to!? I don’t need your help, least of all. Why the fuck do you care?”

 _Least of all_ echoes in Zoro’s head and in rage he closes the gap between them in just a second, and grabs Sanji by the arm. He stares into Sanji’s blue eyes, he sees the light catch in his blond eyelashes, feels his breath on his face.

“I don’t know what I fucking did to you, Sanji,” he says, and can’t stop the hurt from seeping into his voice. “I really don’t know. But you need to cut this shit out. Nami was crying last night when you didn’t pick up the phone.”

He lets go of Sanji’s arm and turns away. “Stop being such an egocentric fucking dickhead.”

Sanji doesn’t move.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, it's fucking June already. I don't know how this keeps happening... But I can say that I'm done with school and exams and all that crap! Woop! I apologize for being so slow, truly. About this chapter: This kind of a short filler (sorry). I wanted to show this from Zoro's point of view - it might be boring to relive that part from the last chapter over again, I hope it isn't, but I really felt like I needed to show the bigger picture. I love writing from Sanji's POV but it's refreshing to switch and give you an insight into Zoro's confused thoughts once in a while. And now that I've gotten this out of the way, I can start on the promised action filled parts! Hah.  
> \- M


	4. Finally

Sometimes, Sanji would daydream about a better version of himself. In the quiet of his own mind, he calls him “Australian Sanji”, a sad joke on the whole upside-downness of him. Australian Sanji is the polar opposite of what Sanji is now: he is friendly and genuine, happy and honest. Sober. A good friend. He’s content and steady, and when he looks at himself in the mirror, he doesn’t see blurry edges, he sees a complete, whole image. Australian Sanji smiles with his whole face, and probably does volunteer work or some shit like that in his spare time. He is all the things that Sanji doesn’t think he can ever be. Maybe he isn’t a simpler version, but at the very least he’s less layered, and his personality isn’t hidden under sixteen circles of self-hatred, depression, and anxiety.

And in the spirit of things that can’t be; Australian Sanji is, in some alternate universe, friends with Zoro. Because even when daydreaming, Sanji doesn’t dare fully explore the concept of _being_ with Zoro, as anything more than pals. If he did he would be pushing the limits of his own sanity.

He thinks about this sometimes, like gazing into a snow globe of a life he could never live, whenever he hears a particularly fitting song lyric or sentence. Australian Sanji and Zoro are as mentioned friends, and regular Sanji can catch a glimpse of their endeavors at the strangest times. Right now he pictures them on air beds on the floor, for some reason, in Sanji’s apartment, talking about music. Very casual, no strings attached, nothing more than that. And it still hurts, it fucking does. But it’s usually better than the real stuff happening in his life at any given time anyway. To be honest, Sanji doesn’t even know if they have the potential to be friends in real life, if they have anything in common. But there has always been a quality with Zoro, something unplaceable, vague, but at the same time very real. A magnetic force. Sanji knows he isn’t the only one who feels it, he can see it in the faces of his friends when Zoro is near. They way they look at him is so honest and strong. Maybe that’s what Zoro does, he makes people feel safe and at ease. Sanji doesn’t know, cause he sure as hell feels on edge all the fucking time. But there is _something_ about Zoro. Something special. He isn’t the “glue that holds the group together”, that’s Luffy, definitely, but they wouldn’t function without him either. He’s not even in the band. In his own words, he is “as musical as a drunk man stepping on bagpipes” whatever that really means. But he’s still there. Always. _You’re staying over, blow up the aerobed_ , Sanji writes in his book, to a melody he just thought of.  
_You sleep more here than in your own apartment. Friendship this intense is frightening, you go in the bathroom and come out a different person. Dri_ _ve the van home from some show upstate, snowflakes flying by like stars in hyperspace… Think we met, could have sworn it, but we forget, once we’re born._

He sighs and stares at the page, before he rips it out of the book and throws it in the direction of the trash can. Then he picks his laptop up from the floor, and thinks that he doesn’t know what day it is. He just knows that Zoro was in his apartment some time ago, yelled at him (rightfully so), and now he isn’t here anymore. And Sanji hasn’t seen or talked to anyone since that day, to be honest, he hasn’t even been out of the building. The only things he did was send a short text to Nami that he’s sorry he made her worry. He sent another one to his boss to say he’s sick, and won’t be coming to work. He can’t even remember what shit excuse he came up with, and doesn’t feel like it matters either. Slowly, he opens his laptop and does something he should have done a long time ago.

_Wikipedia on Clonazepam: sold under the brand name Klonopin among others, is a medication used to prevent and treat seizures, panic disorder…_

He skips down.

_Common side effects include sleepiness, poor coordination, shaking and agitation.[3] Long-term use may result in tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal symptoms if stopped abruptly.[3] Dependence occurs in one-third of people who take clonazepam for longer than four weeks.[5] It may increase risk of suicide in people who are depressed.[5]_

Sanji sighs again, and feels worse than ever before. Then he notices an open tab in his browser, and sees that it’s the website for the band. He must’ve been doing something on there the last time he used the computer. He opens it, and when he sees the latest update, it’s like his fate has finally been sealed.

_The Wreck Up Ahead official website: news_

_“Hi everyone, I have some sad news. After some talking back and forth, we have decided that TWUA is going on an indefinite hiatus. Any gigs we had planned are now canceled. If you pre-ordered tickets, your money will be refunded in full. We love you all, and hope that you will stick with us until we sort out what we need to. - Nami”_

 

Zoro sees the display on his phone light up, but he doesn’t try to read what it says. Instead, he rolls over in bed, and stares at an old poster on his wall. At this point, it’s barely in one piece, taped in several places. It’s the only possession he has that’s been with him since he was a child. It’s a poster of Maradona that he got from his father, back when he played soccer. It always comforts him to look at it, even though he knows nothing about Maradona or plays soccer anymore. For a moment, he disappears into another life, and relaxes. It passes too quickly.

He’s drunk, like he’s been for almost a week. The room is filled with empty beer cans, liquor bottles and a few takeout containers. Every time he feels himself sober up, he drinks more. Luffy doesn’t say anything about it, but he knows. And maybe he _should_ be saying something, hell, Zoro would kick Luffy’s ass if _he_ was drunk all the time. He knows it’s bad. And at the same time, he doesn’t dare stop.

Something’s manifested in him, and he’s afraid to confront it. He doesn’t have what it takes to find out exactly what it is. He just knows the way Sanji looked at him that morning, like his soul was bared, and Zoro could reach out and take it, if he wanted to. But he didn’t, he left him in his apartment, shaking, skinny and alone. Just like Sanji wanted him to, that fucking masochist.

They’re not even friends. Zoro doesn’t feel like his head is making any sense, none of this makes any sense, but it’s still real. And terrifying. No, he’d rather be drunk and dizzy, and have even Johnny and Yosaku look at him with pity - which must be a new low. His coach is furious with him, he’s texted him a million times, called him even more. Zoro doesn’t pick up or answer, simply because he doesn’t know what to say.

 

One afternoon, Kuina stops by. It feels weird, because she’s never been to his apartment before, they always go to the library or her place because it’s much closer to the university. But she just shows up at his door, and Johnny immediately tries to chat her up, of course, and makes her very uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry about that,” Zoro says, once they’re in his room, and feels ridiculous. He realizes that he should be sorry for not answering her texts more wholeheartedly, and telling her what the fuck is going on. Not to mention he’s pretty sure he looks like shit, and he hasn’t showered in a couple of days.

“It’s okay,” Kuina says timidly, and looks around Zoro’s room with a worried look.

“Ehm, you can sit here,” Zoro mumbles and pushes some pizza boxes off of a chair with as much dignity as he can at this point.

Nothing has ever looked as out of place in his apartment as Kuina does right now. She’s well-dressed and neat as usual, and almost looks like she’s been photoshopped into Zoro’s disgusting room. She sits carefully on the chair, like it may break under her at any moment.

“Look, Zoro,” She starts, adjusting her thick-framed glasses. “I’m obviously here for tutoring purposes but honestly, I’m a bit worried about you.”

Zoro looks at his hands.

“Clearly you have some stuff going on,” she continues, “and if you want or need to talk about it you know I’m here. Right?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He feels himself smile for the first time in a week. “I’m sorry I haven’t said much. I just… I don’t really know. What’s going on, I mean.”

She nods and smiles. “It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“You’re my oldest friend, I really appreciate you checking on me,” Zoro says. And it’s true. He’s known Kuina since kindergarten, and even though they’re not that close anymore, and she’s more his math-tutor than his friend at this point, it still counts for a lot.

“Anytime,” she says, and grins before she conjures a huge stack of paper out of her bag. Zoro sighs. No matter what, he can never escape math.

 

Sanji doesn’t know what exactly made him realize. Maybe the way Zoro looked at him with so much pain, or maybe mostly the band hiatus, because it made him think of playing guitar in front of a crowd. He wanted desperately to feel that again, he’d forgotten but now it was back full force, and his hands were too shaky to even hold a guitar. His notebook looked like it had been scribbled in by a three-year-old.

The worst part was how he constantly convinced himself he was in charge of the pills, of his own consumption, and not the other way around. It just wasn’t the truth anymore, if it ever had been. He’d told himself that he needed them to shut out his anxiety and demons, etcetera. And now he finally realized they just made everything worse.

On this day, he finds himself standing on a bridge, staring out at the gray ocean. Sanji’s been here many times before, and he won’t lie, he’s entertained the thought of jumping. He’s entertained it to the point that a lady stopped her car to talk to him, because she’d driven the other direction five hours ago and he was still there when she came back. He lied and told her everything was fine, and went home. But he kept coming back, and now he was here again, with a plan this time.

He takes a breath, and the cigarette between his lips glows. Then he finally does it, he backs up for additional force, and then hurls his box of Klonopin straight into the sea. He watches it as it gets smaller and smaller, and eventually blends so well with the waves that he can’t see it anymore. He already feels empty, but also free. Lonely and free. He walks home with a smile on his hollow face.

 

That night he’s up sweating and shaking even worse than before. He can’t sleep so he might as well write, and he fucking does, he writes his little heart out. He feeds his cat, and she looks at him like she too understands that something has changed, somehow. When he’s done with his song draft it’s already seven in the morning. He feels terrible, but in a new way. A way that might be beatable.

After a quick shower, he walks to Nami’s, and dramatically slides the notebook sheet under her door. It has a post-it on it, that says: “what do you think?” and a little smiley face. Maybe he is a smiley-face kind of guy after all.

 

When Nami gets up for breakfast that morning, she immediately notices that something is different in her apartment. She stares at the piece of paper on her doormat, and it’s like her whole body knows that it’s from Sanji, she doesn’t have to read it to know. It startles her, and starts a reaction in her that overpowers the never-ending gloom she’s been stuck in lately.

The paper is a mess, the words are so squiggly that she almost can’t make out what it ways. Some places the words are smudged, like Sanji was crying when he wrote this. On the top there’s a hasty message to her:

_Hey Nami, I’m so sorry about everything. I know I’ve been a dick. I will try not to be anymore. Thank you for being my best friend, I hope you still are. I wrote a song draft about everything. It’s called “Well”._

She smiles, and feels like maybe, just maybe, everything might be okay after all.

 

**_WELL_ **

_Made it to the Mana Tree_  
_Nina lying at my feet_  
_She whimpered fitfully_  
_I was lonely I was free_  
  
_Now there's music I can't hear_  
_Doesn't seem like 16 years_  
_Relics from another life_  
_I'm blank again_  
_Temperature's rising_  
  
_[Chorus 1:]_  
_Think I need help_  
_Wanna get well_  
_The morning sky's gunmetal grey_  
_Daylight spending_  
_Take to bed_  
_The endless loop inside my head_  
_The second I wake up it starts to spin_  
  
_I feel like I'd do anything_  
_To escape the silver flames_  
_Remember when I was a kid_  
_A metal sun shined in my basement_  
  
_[Chorus 2:]_  
_Think I need help_  
_Wanna be well_  
_Seven years_  
_A million miles_  
_Crying 'cause I'm sick again_  
_Is this how it is gonna end?_  
I'd stay in bed but we've got check at 5

_[Epic guitar part]_

_And now I’m lonely  
_ _I’m lonely but I’m free_

\------

 

Sanji meets Nami at a bar later that night, and it feels almost unreal, like they haven’t seen each other in years. It’s like a veil has lifted from his eyes, even though he isn’t through with the withdrawal process, he still feels like a new man. Everything looks so much brighter. He tells her how he threw his pills off the bridge, and she almost starts crying.

“I’m sorry, Nami,” he says, his voice wobbly. “I’m done now, I promise.”

“You better be,” she sniffles, and they hug it out. Like they always do.

The bar is quiet tonight, and the bartender grins at Sanji when she sees him sit down. It’s nice to feel like a piece of the puzzle again.

He doesn’t want to say what’s on his mind, but it’s burning inside of him like a ball of fire. Nami, of course, notices and smiles wryly.

“You wanna ask about Zoro, don’t you,” she says, and Sanji feels his ears redden. It’s not like he hasn’t learned his lesson, he knows Zoro is probably never gonna like him, and certainly not the way Sanji likes him. And he will get over it, he will. But he hasn’t seen him since the fateful day at his apartment, and has no idea what he’s up to.

“From what I hear,” Nami says, her smile disappearing. “I don’t think he’s doing so well.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she replies. “I just know what Luffy’s told me. Apparently, he used to drink a lot some years ago, but he got past it. And now it seems he’s back to drinking. I don’t get it, he won’t answer my texts.”

Sanji feels his heart sink, and instinctively pats his pocket for the box of Klonopin. It’s not there of course, and it makes him feel uneasy, because nothing can protect him from his anxiety now.

Nami smiles at him despite everything and squeezes his hand.

“Maybe you should return the favor,” she says, sipping leisurely from her glass.

“What favor?” Sanji asks suspiciously.

“Hm, I don’t know,” Nami starts innocently. “Go to his apartment and talk to him.”

Sanji almost chokes on his own tongue.

“Why would I subject myself to that? I already know how he feels about me at the moment, I hardly think we’re on friendly terms.”

Nami frowns, like she knows the situation better, somehow. “Bullshit. He needs a friend right now, and you know Luffy, he’s a bit too happy-go-lucky with these types of things. You could talk some sense into Zoro, lead by good example or something. Besides, he’s drunk.”

Sanji swallows and looks into his glass of sparkling water. It tastes disgusting. “You know, I almost punched him when he was at my place.”

“So what? That’s good, you two are not afraid to be honest with each other. I’m not saying you should punch him, not at all, but it’ll be alright.”

Things can just never be easy for Sanji, it seems.

“And,” Nami continues. “I really liked your song, and I’m super excited for Luffy to hear it. But we can’t be a band without our designated driver.”

“Fuck,” Sanji says, and means it. “You’re right, I know. But still. Fuck.”

 

Sanji feels like a complete idiot when he a few days later knocks on Zoro’s door. He’s never been to his apartment before, but he remembers vaguely that he lives with two other guys.

“Hello?” A voice answers on the calling system, and Sanji is relieved to hear it isn’t Zoro. Maybe he isn’t home.

“Hi, eh, I’m Sanji, I’m here to see Zoro.” He shifts his weight anxiously. “But if he isn’t home, I can come back-”

“You’re Sanji?” The voice replies. “ _That_ Sanji?”

“I guess,” Sanji says, not sure what the guy means by that, but he’s pretty sure there are few other people in the world with his name.

The door opens and a scrawny guy stares at him. He’s wearing a cap and his chin is stubbly.

“You must be one of Zoro’s roommates,” Sanji tries, when the guy doesn’t say anything.

“Hm? Yeah, I’m Yosaku. Nice to meet you, bro.”

Sanji feels increasingly uncomfortable under his stare. “Is Zoro home?”

Yosaku nods, and steps aside. “He always is, lately.”

“Okay,” Sanji mumbles, and sees a door with a “Z” on it. “I’ll just help myself. Thanks.”

He knocks on the door, and feels Yosaku’s eyes on his back.

“Fuck off, Yosaku,” Sanji hears from inside the room.

“It’s me,” Sanji says, and feels very ridiculous as he says it. “Sanji.”

It’s quiet for a long time. Suddenly the door opens a tiny bit.

“Sanji?” Zoro says hoarsely, and even from the small opening Sanji can smell alcohol.

“Yeah, hi. I don’t mean to intrude, I just came to talk. If you want.”

This is the most uncomfortable Sanji has ever felt in his life, and it doesn’t seem like it’s about to get better.

“Shit,” Zoro mumbles, and Sanji can hear noises of things being moved around in the room. “Uh, okay, come in…”

He opens the door, and Sanji looks in disbelief at this guy who’s supposed to be Zoro, the most handsome and most beautiful man Sanji’s ever seen. He looks terrible. His hair is flat to his head, his eyes are sunken and small with large bags. He’s wearing a loose basketball jersey with multiple stains on it and loose sweatpants. It’s like watching Zoro’s twin brother who doesn’t care about anything.

His room looks even worse, like the inside of a garbage can, to put it nicely. There are bottles on literally every available surface, on the floor, and on the bed. It seems like he’s pushed all his other stuff aside to make room for the bottles, Sanji can see football trophies poking out from under the bed. It’s a sad sight. He stands awkwardly between two piles of pizza boxes, and resists the urge to say something dumb like “wow, I love what you’ve done to the place”. Zoro looks at Sanji like he doesn’t quite believe that he’s there, and it’s freaking him out a bit.

“Are you okay?” Sanji mumbles, and watches Zoro as he gingerly sits on the bed, seemingly not minding all the empty bottles. He’s clearly very drunk.

“Okay?” Zoro replies, not sounding like himself at all. “I’m living the dream, man.”

He gestures to the state of the room, and then he snickers. Sanji feels his stomach twist.

Sanji looks at him and feels like his heart might explode. “You wanna talk about it?”

Zoro squints at him, fiddling with the label on a bottle he found on the bed. “I don’t know what _it_ is,” he says, his voice almost inaudible.

“Okay,” Sanji replies.

Zoro takes a swig from a bottle of something that looks like rum.

“Zoro,” Sanji says, and Zoro snaps his head to look at him. “Why are you drinking? And don’t bullshit me, okay, I know a few things about substance abuse at this point.”

“I fucking know that,” Zoro snaps, looking out of the window. “Pretty rich of you to come here and lecture me about it.”

He mumbles the last part, but Sanji still hears it. It’s true. He picks up the bottles from Zoro’s desk chair, and sits down.

“You’re right, and that’s part of the reason I came here. I want to thank you for coming to my place that day, even though you were kind of an asshole. I know you just tried to help, and you did, I’ve kicked the Klonopin. I mean, I’m still working through it. But I’m done.”

Sanji smiles when he sees a blank CD on the desk labeled “zoro’s rockin’ mix #12 for driving” in Zoro’s haphazard handwriting. Fuck, he really misses the band, the road trips, he misses how it was before his pills got the better of him. When they all had fun, and he didn’t let his heartache for Zoro make him a jerk, just a bit quiet around him. Now it’s all messed up, and if he ever did have a chance with Zoro, it’s gone. He just hopes they’ll get the band back together, and that Zoro will forgive him for being a dick when he tried to help.

“Look, I wanna do for you what you did for me. I don’t know what this is about, but this isn’t you. Your friends miss you.”

Sanji doesn’t know if he is counted as a friend. Zoro probably doesn’t think so, all things considered.

“I’m sorry,” Zoro mumbles, staring at his own hands. “I’m really sorry.”

The whole situation is a bit scary. Sanji knows how well Zoro holds his liquor, he almost never gets truly drunk so it must take _a lot_ to make him fucked up like this. Which all the bottles are proof of. Plus, he’s clearly lying about not knowing what’s wrong. He’s not good at lying, at least not in this state it seems.

“Fuck, Zoro,” Sanji says, and can’t stop his voice from going soft. “I don’t know what to do here. You gotta give me something.”

Zoro smiles a tiny smile that seems almost sad, but doesn’t look at Sanji. He hasn’t looked at him once since he got here. “I missed you.”

He speaks so quietly, Sanji’s ears strain to hear the words. But he does hear them. He swallows, and feels his stupid heart speed up.

“What?”

Zoro looks at him for the first time in weeks, and Sanji gets goosebumps. His eyes are so far away, and yet it’s like an electric pulse surges through Sanji’s veins. Suddenly the room seems to shrink, they’re right in front of each other, and Zoro’s looks at him with his glassy eyes. Sanji holds his breath when he says it again, clear as day.

“I missed you, Sanji.”

 

They all meet at the bar later, Zoro clutching his head like it might actually fall off while Nami sips on a cup of coffee, and Usopp is grinning so wide you’d think he won the lottery. Luffy sits on the counter, his flip-flop-clad feet dangling off the edge.

“Friends,” he says, smiling with all his teeth. “Buds. Mates. I’m glad to have you back.”

Zoro smiles slightly, and gives Luffy a half-hearted thumbs up. It feels nice to be back to somewhat normal circumstances again, though Sanji looks with longing at the wine rack behind the counter. He continues drinking his water.

“Thanks, Lu,” Zoro mumbles, looking up at Luffy. “I appreciate you guys helping me clean out my room today.”

Nami shudders at the reminder, and Luffy laughs heartily.

“We’re just glad you’re okay,” Usopp says, leaning on Zoro’s increasingly horizontal form at the counter.

“Thanks, Usopp.”

Luffy finds a bowl of peanuts, and starts shoving them into his mouth like he’s storing them for the winter.

“I was thinking,” he starts, through all the peanuts. “Maybe we do a gig, in a few weeks time, with an epic afterparty to show everyone that we’re back in business! What do you think?”

As usual, it takes a while before they decipher what he’s saying.

“Sounds like a great idea,” Nami grins. “I’ve missed my bass.”

They all agree to Luffy’s plan, and Sanji’s stomach fills with welcomed anticipation and excitement.

 

The next week or so Sanji tries to fix everything he messed up. He calls his boss and gets his job back, and talks to Ace and apologizes for everything. He is very understanding and tells Sanji that if he wants to be friends, he’s totally down for that. Sanji invites him to their concert, and Ace promises to be there. Then Sanji goes to band practice, and plays them his demo for the new song he wrote. The room looks exactly like they left it, a concrete basement, with dozens of old rugs laying around to attenuate some of the noise they make. There’s an old red couch that they found abandoned on the street a long time ago, that Luffy slept on for three weeks many years ago, when he got kicked out of his apartment. Wires stretch across the floor, and Sanji’s guitar stands in his spot waiting for him, like a faithful dog.

“Dude!” Luffy shouts when he’s done playing. “That was awesome!”

Sanji laughs. “Thanks.”

Usopp tries a few different rhythms, and Nami looks like her old self when her fingers move like the wind over the thick bass strings. While this is going on Sanji sits on the couch, immersed in his own thoughts, just noodling around different ideas on his ice blue Fender Strat. It’s his favorite guitar, even though he’s had many over the years. He got this one on his birthday four years ago, from all his friends, and he’s written all his good songs on it. Luffy sits down next to him and closes his eyes, listening to Sanji’s plucking for a while.

“I think you should sing this one,” he says, startling Sanji.

Luffy looks at him with a rare expression of understanding and care, that can only come from your oldest friends. He always saves those looks for moments like these.

“Really?” Sanji replies unsurely. He’s never sung lead before, and the thought terrifies him. “I don’t know if I can, to be honest.”

“You sang it just now,” Luffy argues, referring to the demo. “And it sounded pretty damn good.”

Sanji smiles. “Luffy…”

“Hm, what about this - we practice it with you on lead, and if you change your mind before the show next Friday we switch. Sound okay?”

Sanji chews the inside of his cheek, and looks at his guitar. A strange feeling pools in his stomach, and he starts to feel nerves for the show coming. Could he sing lead? In front of people? In front of Zoro? He swallows.

“I think so.”

Luffy cheers, making Nami and Usopp look their way.

“Sanji’s gonna sing lead on his new song!”

 

Something weird happens that week when Sanji’s at home with his cat, napping on the couch. The screen on his phone lights up and the name “Zoro” stares at him from the table. His cat murmurs unhappily when he reaches for it.

“Sorry, Nina,” he mumbles, thoughts elsewhere completely. “I gotta check my phone…”

She jumps down on the floor and glares at him while he unlocks his phone, and looks at it in disbelief.

“ _Hey, what u up 2?”_

Sanji looks at it like it’s a foreign language he doesn’t understand. This seems a little too familiar. What the fuck is going on here? Why is Zoro small talking to him all of a sudden? He realizes he actually has to answer, and looks at his cat as if for help. She doesn't offer him any miraculous solutions.

“Grumpy you are today,” Sanji mumbles to her, before he quickly taps out what is supposed to be a composed and nonchalant reply.

_“At home with Nina.You?”_

He’s sweating. Why did he mention his cat? Is that lame? He doesn’t know if Zoro even knows that his cat is called Nina, maybe he just thinks it’s some girl. Jesus Christ this is nerve-racking. A new text ticks in only seconds later, and Sanji looks at it with his heart in his throat.

_“Ur cat? Living the crazy life then I see. :) I’m at the gym.”_

What the fuck is Sanji supposed to do with this information? What is this conversation? Why???

_“Figured I’ve been crazy enough lately… What are you doing at the gym?”_

This is fucking ridiculous. He’s a grown ass man, he should be able to small-talk. It sure as hell doesn’t feel like that, with his heart beating like he’s run a fucking marathon.

This continues on back and forth, Sanji doesn’t understand it but it sure is new. Zoro just casually texts him in the middle of the day and asks him what he’s doing, and Sanji replies and asks back. Every time Zoro’s name pops up on the screen, Sanji’s heart kicks into high gear. It can’t be healthy to live like this, Sanji thinks, while typing out a smiley face before he sends his text. It just can’t.

 

The night of the gig Sanji feels like he might die. He’s been battling withdrawal all week, almost hasn’t had any appetite and no sleep. In the middle of this, he’s also been working shifts at the bar/record store, practiced the setlist and texted Zoro while probably making an ass of himself. They’re standing in a cramped hall, backstage, and he can hear the murmur of people outside. Usopp is drumming on his thighs, a familiar look of concentration on his face. Nami grins at him with her pink bass in her hands. Luffy is nowhere to be seen, which is exactly as it usually is.

“Where the fuck is Luffy?” Sanji asks, and Nami waves her hand at him.

“He’ll be here. Probably just on a snack run or something.”

Speaking of the devil - Luffy shows up around the corner, carrying four beers, a box of popcorn, three Klondike bars and a hot dog. Sanji rolls his eyes, but smiles. That moron.

“Something for everyone,” he exclaims, handing them a beer each. He keeps the other stuff. “By the way, have you guys seen the crowd? There are so many people!”

Sanji feels the butterflies in his stomach start spinning. He runs his hands through his hair one more time, so he’s sure it looks alright. Nami pats his arm, and assures him that they’re gonna kick ass out there. It’s hard to argue with her when she’s like this, a goddess of confidence.

The lights dim out on the stage and the crowd cheers. Sanji takes his usual position on Luffy’s right, and plugs his guitar in. They start off with a bang, with Sanji pushing his guitar to the max on _Warning_ , an upbeat and guitar-driven song that gets the crowd going. Playing a show feels almost indescribable. It feels like ascending to heaven, on a cloud fueled by Luffy’s already raspy voice. In the chorus, they all shout into their mics, and Sanji looks over at Nami. She looks like she’s in heaven too.

 _Warning, I am some kind of handful,_ Sanji shouts, securely in the background of Luffy’s voice, grinning at the crowd. He notices Zoro immediately, jumping in the middle, his hair almost blue in the light from the stage. He looks like he’s in a fight with the music, almost throwing punches. He’s beautiful.

“How are we doing tonight!?” Luffy shouts when the song is over. The cheer they get in return makes the hairs on Sanji’s arms stand up.

“We are The Wreck Up Ahead and we wanna make you fly tonight, isn’t that right Sanji?”

“That’s fucking right!” Sanji screams, and the crowd screams back. This, Sanji thinks, looking at his friends and out in the room, is better than any drug. Anything. The show continues with _Jackson_ and _Mallwalking,_ and Sanji plays with everything he’s got. He can see bloodstains on his guitar from that show they played the day before they went to Six Flags. It seems like a lifetime ago.

After _Mallwalking_ they play _Have a Heart_ , which seems to have become a favorite among the audience. They all sing back at them, and it’s the biggest feeling Sanji has ever experienced to see Zoro down there, looking around with a happy grin on his face as he sings, like he can’t believe all these people know the words too. _I felt dead the whole year, but I'm living in hope and I begin to forget._

Sanji has so much fun with the show that he almost forgets that he’s supposed to sing _WELL_ in front of over two hundred people. At the end of _Finally_ it dawns on him, and he almost fucks up his riff, which would have ruined the entire song. Luckily he recovers and it works out, but the ending comes too quickly.

“This show is special,” Luffy says into the mic, a little out of breath from all the jumping around. His black hair almost covers his face, and all you can see is his toothy smile. “Because tonight Sanji’s gonna sing a spanking new song!”

People are cheering and Sanji faintly sees the look of surprise on Zoro’s face. He throws a look at Luffy, hoping that it’ll make him realize that he isn’t up for this after all. But it doesn’t, he just works up the crowd even more, and Usopp sends Sanji two thumbs up from the drums. He shakes his head. Okay. Okay. This will just have to work.

Nami starts the bassline that opens the song, and Sanji positions himself in front of the mic. He feels naked standing there, exposed for the world. He sings, and his voice echoes in the room.

 _Made it to the Mana Tree, Nina lying at my feet_ _  
_ _She whimpered fitfully. I was lonely, I was free_

The drums and guitar kicks in, and in his peripheral vision, Sanji sees Luffy do a karate kick out to the crowd. Then Sanji notices Zoro’s eyes on him, and it makes him shiver to the bone. He hasn’t really seen Zoro since that day at the bar, after he went to his apartment. Then he’d looked defeated, drunk and in pain. Before they got in the car pre-gig Sanji got a glimpse of him, smiling at Luffy, carrying one of Usopp’s drums. He looked good then but Sanji couldn’t linger, and he can now. He stares right down at Zoro, wide-eyed and grinning. He takes him in, his rich, tan skin, his smile, the way his hair moves when his head turns. Zoro always looks at Luffy when they do shows, at least as far as Sanji knows, but now his brown eyes are piercing into him. It’s almost too much. _Now there's music I can't hear..._

Luffy backs him on the chorus, he leans out on his mic stand, almost breaking it, and the crowd goes absolutely crazy. Nami grins down at her bass, Usopp har stars in his eyes and Sanji doesn’t think he has feet anymore, he’s just floating above it all. He carries the song, he sings _think I need help, wanna get well_ to two hundred people who eat it up. _The endless loop inside my head, the second I wake up it starts to spin._

The guitar part comes and Sanji falls hard to his knees but doesn’t feel any pain at all as his fingers move over the strings in intricate patterns, in his most gut-wrenching solo yet. When he lifts his gaze, Zoro’s right there, looking at him. _Think I need help, wanna be well. Seven years, a million miles. Crying 'cause I'm sick again, is this how it is gonna end? I'd stay in bed but we've got check at 5..._

When the song ends, Luffy’s suddenly crowd surfing, laughing into people’s faces as they send him around. When he gets back to the stage he hangs on the mic stand again, grinning down.

“I think it’s time for _Chambers_ ,” he yells suddenly, and the audience screams.

 _Chambers_ is their most widely known song, after it got featured on a local radio station a few months back. Sanji loves it to bits, and falls naturally back to his role of the guitar player in the background. In the climax of the song, Luffy picks up his box of popcorn and throws the whole thing into the air. It rains down like confetti around them, and Luffy himself runs around with his tongue out, trying to catch them like snowflakes. The audience goes wild.

 

Zoro doesn’t know what time it is, everything seems a bit blurry right now, even though he is sober. He walks around like he’s in an aquarium. As if everyone else is in glass boxes, on display. He’s surrounded by people, hundreds of them, but he barely notices it. He doesn’t know what’s happened. All he can think of is the way Sanji moved on stage, and at first he didn't notice it but it was something about this gig, maybe the fact that he wasn’t on pills, Zoro doesn’t know. He feels like he doesn’t know much at all anymore, least of all about himself. Sanji had stood up there like he wasn’t from this world, his hair glowing like a halo around his head. It was like the air itself carried him, and Zoro couldn’t take his eyes off him, like he was fucking hypnotized. Everything was just Sanji and his blue, blue eyes staring down at him, singing, which Zoro had never heard before but it was so beautiful and chilling, he almost felt cheated.

He sits down on a random chair and feels dizzy. I just need a minute, he thinks, and the last few weeks rotate in his head like a Ferris wheel. He pretends he doesn’t know why he was drunk off his ass for over a week, or why images of Sanji haunt him when he goes to sleep. He pretends he doesn’t know why he’s been texting him completely out of the blue.

“Zoro!” Luffy suddenly shouts, and sits down on his lap like it’s just another couch. “Where did you go off to? What did you think of the show?”

Zoro smiles, because Luffy’s right to be excited. It was the best show Zoro’s ever been to, both musically and… otherwise.

“You killed it,” Zoro says truthfully, and suddenly realizes how fucking tired he is. “It was amazing.”

“Wasn’t it?” Luffy grins, snacking on a bar of chocolate or something. Zoro doesn't see, it’s dark in the room. He doesn’t really know where they are, he knows they’re still at the bar, but this is a huge bar and Zoro’s never been here before. He considers having a drink, but the thought of alcohol of any kind makes him nauseous. Water it is then.

“I’m gonna go find some water,” He says, and Luffy hops off him.

“Okay! See you later, Zo.”

 

Sanji walks around in a happy daze. He’s on his third drink that night, which is the perfect amount, because he’s not drunk, just tipsy. And he hasn’t been tipsy in a long time without the added effect of pills, and it feels awesome. Everyone comes up to him and compliments him on his performance and he’s so overwhelmed, all he can do is smile and blush and stutter. He runs into Ace, who’s there with a huge group of friends, and it feels really good to be able to tell him that things are working out, he’s getting better. Ace grins at him and squeezes him in a hug so tight, it almost hurts a little.

He also thinks about Zoro, because he can’t seem to _not_ think about him for even one night. It’s still a bit exhausting. Getting over him is going to be ten times harder than quitting Klonopin. But, tonight is about having fun, so he tries to focus his mind elsewhere. Nami shows up with a girl on her arm, and she’s the same that he saw that day at Six Flags.

“This is Vivi,” Nami says, and Sanji finds it so endearing, he doesn’t even make fun of her blushing face. The three of them have a few drinks together, and Sanji doesn’t notice before it’s too late that he’s a little drunk.

“Guys, I’m going out for some air,” he laughs, and leaves Nami and Vivi to be grossly in love alone.

He sits down on the curb outside the bar and smokes a cigarette. He watches the smoke swirl in the air, and thinks that a month ago he wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for him to be this happy. Suddenly a familiar figure exits the bar, and it’s first when he sits down next to Sanji on the curb that he sees it’s Zoro.

“Woah, hey,” Sanji says, before he can stop himself. Zoro looks too fucking good right now, and it took him by surprise. His hair is tousled, he’s in a white Levi’s t-shirt and semi-tight jeans. He looks troubled though, and before Sanji can ask why, he remembers that you’re not supposed to blatantly check out your friends, and diverts his eyes to the pavement.

“Great show,” Zoro says, his deep voice almost right next to Sanji’s ear. At least it feels like it.

“Thanks,” he says, and can’t help but grin as he breathes out the cigarette smoke.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Zoro continues, picking at a loose thread on his black canvas shoes.

“Honestly, me neither,” Sanji laughs, and Zoro looks at him. It’s in the middle of the night but Sanji can see him clearly. He’s never looked at him like that before, and Sanji feels like Zoro is looking at his face like he’s expecting to see something there, an answer maybe. An answer to what, Sanji doesn’t know. And he doesn’t think he has any.

“You okay?” he asks, and it feels strange, because he suddenly becomes very aware of the shift in the way they talk. He would never have asked Zoro that before.

Zoro shrugs. “Don’t really know.”

Sanji doesn’t know if he’s a little too drunk right now, or if Zoro’s sitting unusually close to him. The tension is in any case very palpable.

“Want one?” he asks, on a whim, holding his Lucky Strike pack out for Zoro. To Sanji’s surprise, he takes one, with a little smile, and Sanji fishes out his lighter from his pants pocket and lights it for him. It feels very intimate, and the intensity of Zoro’s eyes is making Sanji’s heart beat a lot faster. He watches Zoro smoke the cigarette, watches as he inhales and closes his eyes, before he blows the gray smoke out in a thin line. Sanji has to look somewhere else before he says or does something very stupid he’ll regret. He feels a lot more drunk than he did when he sat down.

“Join me inside?” Zoro says hoarsely, after he’s finished smoking. Sanji’s head feels dangerously light.

“Yeah, okay.”

He’d fucking join Zoro anywhere.

When they get inside, Sanji magically finds the courage to ask about something that he still doesn’t understand. They’re in a dark room off the side of the bar, because it was too noisy by the dance floor.

“Hey,” Sanji says, like he just thought of it. “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I’m just wondering… Why have you been texting me this past week?”

Zoro smiles, and doesn’t look at Sanji. “I don’t know. Maybe I want us to be friends.”

Sanji stares at him in the dark, and his stupid fucking heart speeds up again. Zoro finally looks at him, and Sanji doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“I feel like I didn’t really make the effort before,” Zoro continues. “And that was stupid.”

Sanji smiles and tries not to be so fucking obvious. “Thanks. I want us to be friends too.”

It’s not like it’s a lie. He does want that, he just also wants a bunch of other things.

“I thought you hated my guts,” Zoro admits, and Sanji stares wide-eyed at him.

“I’m sorry,” Sanji mumbles, because he knows he’s been kind of a jerk to Zoro. “I didn’t hate you. At all.”

The room gets smaller, like most rooms seem to when it’s just him and Zoro there. “I know I was a moody dick,” Sanji continues, and Zoro laughs. “But it was more of a… _me_ -thing than a you-thing, if that makes sense.”

God, he’s drunk. Zoro leans against the wall, and for a moment it feels like he’s sizing him up. He looks so good, it’s not fair. Zoro’s hair, Sanji notices, is a little longer now than it usually is. It suits him so well. His hands are in his pockets, and he’s studying Sanji in a way that makes him feel like it’s getting hotter and hotter in the room.

“Anyway,” Sanji mumbles, not sure what he’s supposed to read from this situation. “I’m sorry I was a dick. That’s the short version.”

Why is Zoro looking at him like that? Sanji’s heart is at fucking maximum speed right now, and maybe it’s the liquor talking, but he decides to test the limits a little. He moves slightly closer, and tries to subtly shift to a position against the wall that makes him look a little taller and more confident. His blond fringe falls in front of one of his eyes, and when he looks at Zoro, Sanji could swear that he looks a little flustered. Okay, shit. He grins, and Zoro looks at him again with visibly red ear tips, and dilated pupils.

“Sanji…” Zoro starts, his voice all rough, and Sanji can’t take it anymore. He closes what little distance is left between them, and kisses Zoro as softly as he can manage when he’s been wanting to do this for God knows how many years. Zoro gasps into his mouth and kisses him back, and Sanji’s mind fucking explodes into fireworks and confetti. He can’t believe this is happening, his heart is beating so hard he’s sure Zoro can hear it, as he presses them up against the wall. His lips feel thousands of times more amazing against his than Sanji could have ever imagined. Zoro opens his mouth as Sanji moves his kisses to his jaw, and places a hand on his hip.

“God, Zoro,” he breathes, and moves his hand slowly under his t-shirt. Sanji feels the toned muscles move under his fingers for a second, before Zoro’s eyes fly open, and he suddenly pushes him off. It takes Sanji by such surprise that he almost falls backward, but manages to steady himself on the opposite wall of the narrow room. He doesn’t understand anything as he looks at Zoro, who’s catching his breath. The silence is suffocating.

“Is that all I am to you?” he says, and the hurt in his voice makes Sanji even more confused. The words echo in the small space, and Zoro stares at him for a few seconds.

“I- What?” Sanji mumbles, trying to calm his heart rate. “What are you talking about?”

He understands less and less as Zoro clenches and unclenches his fists, before he abruptly leaves the room. Sanji shouts his name after him but he doesn’t turn, and after just a few seconds he’s completely out of view. He’s too drunk to run after him, so he slides down the wall and sits on the floor, head in his hands. Sanji can still feel the ghost touch of Zoro’s hands on his back, the taste of his lips and his sharp jaw. He shivers, and wonders how everything could backfire so spectacularly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woahhhh. That was a lot. I exhausted myself with this, and I'm not completely happy with it because I originally planned for Sanji to struggle more with quitting his drugs... But I want Action! So that's that. Uninteresting fact: I didn't know the band name was gonna be The Wreck Up Ahead until I got to that part in the story, and just wrote it like that. I didn't plan it but I think it makes sense? Haha. Also, poor, poor Zoro. I feel bad for giving him such a hard time, but it'll work out! Take care, and thanks for reading this far! I appreciate your kudos and comments very much!! -M


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